BEIJING — Curling is often called chess on ice. Thursday night, it was more like a math problem on ice for John Shuster and his teammates.
The U.S. men trailed Great Britain 5-4 after five ends in an Olympic semifinal. In the sixth end, Shuster had a chance to score only one point, so he threw away his last stone to retain control of the hammer, the final shot of the end. The strategy was to keep control of the hammer until Team Shuster could set up an opportunity for multiple points.
The seventh end played out the same way. So did the eighth. Finally, the Brits' precision backed Team Shuster into a corner it couldn't escape, handing Great Britain an 8-4 victory and ending the United States' chances of repeating as Olympic champion.
Shuster's Duluth, Minn.-based team will play Canada for the bronze medal at 12:05 a.m. Friday (Minnesota time). Great Britain skip Bruce Mouat will lead his foursome into Saturday's gold medal match against Sweden, a 5-3 winner over the Canadians in the other semifinal at National Aquatic Centre.
After a beauty of a shot by Mouat in the ninth end, Shuster made an analytics-based choice to throw his last rock through the house, conceding a point to the Brits but retaining the hammer for the final end. Down 6-4, Shuster said the odds favored his team's chances of scoring three points for the victory.
The strategy was sound, but the execution faltered.
"Everybody dreams of coming to the Olympics and winning a gold medal,'' said Shuster, who will play for his third medal in five Winter Games appearances. "You lose the semifinal, and that dream ends.
"But I've also been part of a team that's lost this game and had to come back and play for a bronze. And I knew exactly how we handled it to get ourselves ready to come and win that bronze. If we play great (Friday), we'll see what happens.''
Shuster earned that bronze at his first Olympics in 2006, playing lead for the U.S. team skipped by Pete Fenson. Team Fenson beat Great Britain to earn the U.S.'s first Olympic medal in curling.
The skip of that British team was David Murdoch, who was much happier Thursday. Now Great Britain's coach, Murdoch was thrilled that his curlers will bring home a medal for Britain, which has been blanked in Beijing.
"That's been one of the biggest tests we've had this week,'' Murdoch said of the semifinal. "It's exciting, isn't it? We've got a shot for the Olympic title. We can't wait. It's going to be the best game ever.''
Team Shuster dealt Great Britain its only loss in the Olympic round robin, defeating the Scottish foursome 9-7 last week. In the semifinal, the U.S. stole two points in the first end, but Britain came right back to score three in the second end.
The lead went back and forth until the fifth end, when Mouat bumped out a U.S. rock for two points and a 5-4 lead. After the three blank ends, Shuster said he decided to yield a point to Great Britain in the ninth end because the U.S. had scored three points on the Brits several times before, and he felt the odds of doing it again were in his favor.
That calculation didn't hold up, leaving Team Shuster to play for a different medal than it hoped for.
"It's definitely a bit of a disappointment after winning gold last time,'' Shuster's teammate Matt Hamilton said. "But I'm proud of this team and what we've been able to do.''
